


Learning the Hard Way

by metisket



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Finders - Freeform, Gen, ceiling lavi is watching you, fatalism is the new black, he comes bearing insults and also chocolate, it sucks to be a finder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-15
Updated: 2012-12-15
Packaged: 2017-11-21 04:20:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/593387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metisket/pseuds/metisket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finders don’t get the glory that exorcists do. And they'd be okay with that, except that they also die faster.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Learning the Hard Way

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Путем проб и ошибок (Learning the Hard Way by metisket)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5088091) by [e_nara (gentou_sanka)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gentou_sanka/pseuds/e_nara)



> First posted June 2009.
> 
> Remember the scene right after the whole Suman Dark debacle when one of the finders is crying and asking if they can send his commander's body home? And Komui says, "No, hell no, what kind of dream world are you living in?"
> 
> I named that finder Michael and made him the main character. Poor bastard.
> 
> Now with:  
> An [Italian translation](http://www.efpfanfic.net/viewstory.php?sid=540309&i=1) by [youffie_17](http://youffie-17.livejournal.com/)

“It’s a new guy.”

“I fuckin hate new guys.”

“Carlos, we need the new guys. Think of the rate at which the old guys die.”

“I hate the way they go around smiling and shit. What the fuck is there to be smiling about? That’s what I want to know.”

“They’ll stop smiling soon enough. I think they’re cute, you know? With their big eyes and their smiles and their having no idea how much they’re going to hate everything in a month or two.”

“…We can’t all take Sarah’s sadistic pleasure in it, but she’s right. They’ll stop smiling soon enough, Carlos. Quit complaining.”

* * *

Dear Mother,

I am here at the Black Order headquarters finally, and they said that we are not allowed to write to our families which you knew. But I thought I might write to you anyway in case we defeat the Millenium Earl and I die and they decide it would be okay for you to have my belongings and letters because there would be no more Akuma if that happened. If that happened, it might be nice for you to know what I did when I was alive even though I said I was never going to speak to you again and slammed the door I am sorry about that.

They feed us very well here which is nice. You don’t have to worry I am eating very well. The Black Order is in a castle which is the scariest thing I have ever seen but I hear it is very safe I guess that’s good.

Today I will be Introduced to my Instructor and then I will be Orientated. I will write to you later to tell you about how it was.

Love from your son,

Michael

* * *

“So. What’s your name, new guy?”

There were women who were finders. _Women_. What his mother would say.

“Uh. My name is Michael O—”

“I don’t want to know your last name, it’s a waste of effort on my part. I’m Sarah. I’m the one introducing you to the castle. Welcome, I guess.”

He didn’t know what she meant by ‘waste of effort,’ but it didn’t seem like a very nice thing to say. “Thank you. I guess.”

“Hey, you got a sense of humor in there after all?” She smiled back at him. “That’s good. Lesson One: Love your sense of humor. Your sanity’s gonna be leaving you soon, and after that, probably your health, so your sense of humor’s gonna be all you got left. And your life, while it lasts.”

Michael was beginning to wonder why they hadn’t chosen someone more…welcoming, for the welcome.

“Who’s your instructor, then?” she asked, walking past a door and casually waving to it. “Library,” she said.

Michael wasn’t even sure which floor they were on.

“My instructor is Mr. Kim.” Mr. Kim was foreign. Most of his classmates had been foreign. That had been almost as much of a surprise as Sarah.

“Kim, huh? He’s okay. Bazu had him, and…and John did! Yeah. John’s great!”

“Ah.” Whoever those people were.

“Baths,” she said, gesturing again. “Oh, but not _our_ baths, of course.”

Michael waited. Eventually, it became clear that that no further information would be forthcoming.

“Whose baths are they?” he asked.

“The exorcists’, of course!” Sarah said, turning and continuing her explanation while walking backwards. “This whole upper part of the castle is for them. Don’t use those baths; they’ll kill you for sure.”

“I thought we worked with the exorcists?” Michael asked, getting steadily more bewildered.

“We work _for_ the exorcists,” Sarah corrected. “Like a horse. Or a hammer. Okay, this is the dining hall!”

“Uh…the exorcists’ dining hall?”

“Oh, no. It’s everyone’s.”

Michael had never cried from confusion before, but he could feel it coming on.

“Oh shit, it’s Carlos,” Sarah said.

Woman finders who swore. His mother would _die_.

“Oh shit, it’s _Sarah_ ,” a dark-haired man sitting at a table with a couple other men said. “I thought you were showing the new guy around, you fuckin slacker.”

“This _is_ the new guy,” Sarah said with false sweetness. She waved at Michael in exactly the same way she’d waved at the rooms on the tour. “New Guy Michael. Meet Carlos,” –the dark-haired guy—“Olson,” –a huge, scary blond guy—“and John.” John was smiling. John was the only one in the entire dining hall who was smiling, Michael noticed.

“I hate new guys,” Carlos informed him.

“Ah,” said Michael. The horrible thought struck him that maybe they _had_ picked someone welcoming to give him the tour.

“Ignore Carlos,” Olson advised. “He’s a dick to everyone.”

“Yeah, don’t go thinking you’re special,” Carlos added.

“How did you end up in the Order?” John asked cheerfully. “If you don’t mind my asking, of course.”

Why would Michael mind his asking?

“My sister,” he said, and then discovered that he did mind the asking, after all. He really didn’t want to say anything else. As it developed, though, he didn’t have to.

“Ah. Olson’s here for a sister, too. Right Olson?” Sarah asked. Olson glared at her.

“I think it’s beautiful,” she continued. “That human ability to love beyond reason.”

“You think it’s _beautiful?_ ” Carlos asked incredulously.

“Well. From a certain point of view,” Sarah said. “To love someone enough to bring them back from the dead. In a way, the existence of akuma says a nice thing about humanity.”

“Yeah? Yeah? Screw that,” Carlos snapped, half-standing. “My father beat my mother to death and then brought her back because he wasn’t fucking done with her yet, how do you like that? And then the fucking exorcists came along, killed them both, and dragged me here. Damn, ain’t humanity grand?”

“ _Most of the time_ , Carlos,” Sarah shouted back, standing too. “Just because _your_ family was a freak show doesn’t mean _everyone_ —”

“Shut up before some exorcist makes you,” Olson muttered to his plate, stabbing at it.

“There are hardly any exorcists _in_ here,” Sarah huffed, but sat back down anyway. “Oh, speaking of which, we should be initiating the new guy. Instead of starting a riot.”

“Are we gossiping?” John asked happily.

“Yeah, gossip,” said Carlos with a sinister smile. Michael had only known Carlos for five minutes, and already he was terrified of him. “Let’s tell him about our lords and masters. I like to see their faces. Don’t you like to see their faces, psycho woman?”

“Well.” Sarah smiled a Carlos-like smile that made Michael very uncomfortable. “I do, actually.”

“First, there are the Greeeeeaaaat Generals,” said Olson.

“You’ll never see them. Forget they exist,” Sarah said.

“Then there’s the science department,” Olson continued. “Buncha egg-heads.”

“They’re over there, see?” Sarah pointed. Michael saw a crowd of unwashed, twitchy, strung-out people. “They’re totally nice,” Sarah said. “Don’t talk to them.”

“Don’t…but. But you said they were nice?”

“They are nice. But they only ever talk about weird sciency things, and if you run into them when they’re tired enough, they’ll try to test their crazy experiments on you.”

“Anybody ever seen that Robert guy again?” Carlos asked with mild curiosity.

“Nope,” Sarah answered. “Next, the kitchen staff—they’re friendly but a bit mad. Maintenance and maid types hate you. Trust me, Michael, they hate you. They hate everyone. Don’t try to talk to them. The medical staff…they’re okay. Like medical people anywhere, really. Maybe a bit more stressed. And _then_ there are the exorcists. The ones we live to support.”

“Let’s start with the generals and work down,” Olson said happily. Everyone seemed to be getting quite a kick out of this. It was worrying.

“Yeeger,” said Sarah. “He’s pretty harmless, as exorcists go. Him and Theodore. They’re not half bad. Of course, we’re so low-ranking, we’re probably only ever going to see the generals in passing, but I hear those two are decent.”

“Klaud Nyne,” said Olson. “She’s insane. I hear she sics her monkey on you if you piss her off. And things like steeping her tea too long piss her off.”

“Zokalo,” Carlos said, and then he stopped. Everyone at the table shuddered a little. “Don’t go there,” he concluded.

“And then there’s Cross,” John said cheerfully. John seemed to say everything cheerfully. Maybe he’d gotten stuck that way. “You’ll never see him.”

“No one’s seen him,” Sarah said.

“Sounds like that’s damned lucky, too,” Carlos added.

After a while, Michael stopped picking up the fine details. There were nineteen exorcists at the moment, and the finders seemed to know at least one horrifying thing about every one of them. Michael only tuned into the highlights.

Apparently there was a girl named Lenalee Li who was a relative of someone and who tended to think of finders as furniture. Furniture she liked, but still. “Don’t ever make the mistake of thinking that she’s seeing a human when she looks at you,” Sarah said. “You’ll be in for a world of hurt. You don’t count with her.”

There was a guy named Rabon who tested his Innocence on the finders whenever he got bored during a mission.

There was a new kid named Walker who no one knew anything about, but he looked creepy.

Kanda was really decent to work with, but the second you were no longer on a job with him, he’d kill you as soon as look at you.

Bookman and Lavi never forgot anything you said _ever_ ; you had to be careful around them. And Lavi was a big old stalker of everyone, so good luck not spilling your life story to him. Everyone else had.

Suman Dark was nice enough, but he was easy to distract, and when he got distracted, his finders tended to die horribly.

Daisya Barry liked to play pranks. Awful, unspeakable, no-one-wants-to-remember-that pranks.

And so on and so forth.

At the end of the day, Michael crawled quietly into his assigned bunk, mind whirling with way too much information and a fair bit of terror. He was asleep before he got a chance to meet any of his roommates.

He didn’t meet them the next morning either, because he was sent on a mission. He did not feel ready for a mission. However, Sarah had already helpfully informed him that the only thing he needed to be prepared for on missions was his own premature death, so he shouldn’t worry too much.

* * *

Dear Mother,

My job here is to be a Finder, we help out the Exorcists and find Innocence and are basically Support Staff. A man I know Carlos says the Exorcists are a bunch of stuck up crazy you-know-whats. Carlos says a lot of bad words especially about the Exorcists. That seems strange to me since we are supposed to help them mostly so I’m not sure what I think about that.

The Exorcists are the ones who use the Innocence and fight the Akuma. They are the whole point I don’t care if they are crazy and stuck up. They are very interesting people and I will tell you about them if I have time.

I have already been on one mission, it was boring but also disgusting. Sarah (there are lady Finders!) says that they are always boring except for when you almost die, so I am happy it was boring. It was only a cleanup in Germany. I will tell you more but now I have to go train.

Love from your son,

Michael

* * *

“Toma!” Carlos shouted from across the dining hall. “Shit, you made it back alive? From a _Kanda_ mission? We figured that fucker would stab you for sure!”

“Carlos, you shouldn’t say bad things about Mr. Kanda,” Michael put in nervously. He’d spent the entire week since he’d gotten back hearing horror stories about things various irate exorcists had done to people in between missions. His initial nervousness around exorcists was steadily becoming outright fear.

“Yeah,” said Olson. “For one thing, he might hear you, and _then_ who’d get stabbed?”

“Whatever,” said Carlos. “He’s not even here; he’s on another mission. Seriously, Toma, how was it? How was the new kid? He get along with Kanda like everybody gets along with him?”

“Better,” Toma said quietly, sitting to eat.

After a pause, Carlos said, “Now, when you say ‘better.’ You say that cuz you’re fuckin with me, or you say that because really for serious he got along with him better than anybody else?”

“Nobody gets along with Kanda better than Lenalee, anyway,” Olson said dismissively.

“Only because he’s afraid of Lenalee,” said Sarah.

“Oh, he is not _afraid_ of Lenalee,” Olson scoffed. “That’s his way of showing he likes somebody.”

“Acting afraid of them?” Sarah asked dubiously.

“Seriously. The guy has no, whaddaya call em, social graces.”

“Shut up, Olson, I gotta hear what Toma has to say,” Carlos cut in. “Come on, man! Don’t hold out on us! Let’s hear about the new guy! What’s his name? Walker, yeah? He a psycho like the rest?”

“I think Mr. Walker will be a good influence on Mr. Kanda,” Toma said, refusing to look away from his soup.

“Say what now?” Carlos demanded.

“Hey, it may be true,” Sarah said. “Remember before they left? Walker just about broke Kanda’s hand because he was choking Bazu.”

“ _Broke his hand?_ ” Carlos gasped.

“ _Choking Bazu?_ ” Michael squawked.

“Oh yeah, you guys were on missions,” Sarah said. “Yeah, they had this huge thing right here in the dining hall, so Walker’s no wimp, I guess. Bazu tried to stand up for his beliefs or something. In front of _Kanda_. He’s just lucky he’s not dead, you know? Because, even though I really hate to agree with Carlos, the exorcists can be…well…a little crazy sometimes. It’s not actually worth arguing with people who are crazy and can swat you like a fly without even thinking about it. Really not.”

“High guts to brains ratio, Bazu,” Olson muttered.

“But but but.” Michael flailed. “Bazu is…very big. And Mr. Kanda is…”

“An exorcist, my friend,” John said with his usual cheer. “Any one of them could take ten of us down at once on a _bad_ day, including Lenalee. If you want to see something truly scary, go watch Kanda training one morning.”

“Yeah, but don’t let him catch you,” Carlos sniped. “He’ll cut your hand off for getting in the way of his falling leaves or some shit.”

“Carlos, why the hell did you become a finder anyway?” Sarah asked. “You hate the sight of exorcists.”

“But I don’t want the goddamn _world_ to end,” Carlos shot back.

“But Carlos,” she said, trying for the voice of reason, “exorcists…they sacrifice themselves so the world won’t end. Shouldn’t you be grateful or something?”

“Fuck no,” he snapped. “ _We_ sacrifice ourselves. Those bastards don’t get a choice, okay? No way would they do it if they didn’t have to. Look at that damn Lenalee, huh? They had to fuckin _strap her down_ , is what I heard. They don’t give a shit about the world. They’re just stuck. Nothing to respect there, okay? Nothing.”

“Something to pity, though, perhaps,” Toma remarked quietly, before picking up his plate and ghosting away.

“And another thing,” Carlos said after a moment of silence. “That guy creeps me the fuck out.”

“Oh, come off it, Carlos,” Sarah snapped.

“Toma’s old guard,” John remarked. “There aren’t very many of them. They’re in a league of their own.”

“Why aren’t there many of them?” Michael asked curiously.

“Cuz they all fuckin died, Mikey,” Carlos. “Just like we’re gonna die way the hell before we make it as long as Toma has, okay? Better fuckin get used to the idea.” He picked up his tray and stormed out of the dining hall.

“He's touchy today,” Sarah remarked.

“Whole unit died last mission,” Olson explained.

“And _he_ made it? Crazy. What are the odds?”

“I hear they left him to take care of the horses.”

“ _I’d_ leave him with the horses.”

“His whole unit died?” Michael interrupted in a horrified whisper. Sarah and Olson turned to him in surprise. John looked away.

“Oh, honey,” Sarah said unsympathetically after a moment. “You’re so new.”

* * *

Dear Mother,

I have only been here at the Order for a few months but I have already been on 5 missions so I have not had as much time to write as I thought. I have seen a lot of very bad things and a lot of people have died. I did not know it would be like this even though you told me it would I miss you very much.

One of the Exorcists told a Noah where we would be and 6 Exorcists have died. That is how they always say it, that 6 Exorcists have died, and they mention later that 142 Finders died like it is not that important. And that is true. We’re not that important, not like the Exorcists are. You can see how Carlos gets to be the way he is because it would be bad enough if it weren’t true but it’s worse because it is.

Carlos says that Exorcists didn’t choose this so it doesn’t count they are only trapped, not like the Finders who chose it. Toma, who has been a Finder for a very long time, he says we should feel sorry for them because of that. Maybe Toma is right, but I think we are trapped here too now. Maybe we got to choose and the Exorcists didn’t, but I don’t think we knew what we were choosing in the first place, not really.

Most of the Exorcists are in Japan right now, which is very far away and I have never even thought about going that far away. My friends Sarah and Olson are out on missions too. I hope they are all right even though Sarah told me they were as good as dead. She is not a very happy person sometimes.

I should go now our new chief wants us to report soon. Our old chief died on the last mission. He was saving me. It was my fault. I asked Chief Officer Komui if we could send his body back to his son, but he said we couldn’t because the son might turn his father into an Akuma. I guess he could. I guess you’re never going to get these letters and I knew that but I didn’t really.

So there’s no point.

* * *

“Does Toma usually sit over there with his friends?” Michael asked, curious about the older Finders. There were only about fifteen of them, and they kept carefully to themselves. They seemed so unaffected by all the death. They looked grim, yes, but then they always looked grim. There was no sign that they considered this week to be more or less terrible than any of the hundreds of weeks leading up to it.

Michael wasn’t sure whether he was impressed or horrified.

“Toma doesn’t have any friends, Mikey,” Carlos said, rolling his eyes.

“Oh? But…he’s sitting with those other finders?”

“Yeah, they understand each other. Look at em. They don’t talk or anything.”

Michael looked. It was true, they didn’t talk. They didn’t even look at each other. They were just eating at the same table, looking similarly grim.

“Why don’t they have any friends?” he asked.

“All their friends are dead, Mikey. They got tired of making new ones.”

“That’s why it’s a bad idea for people to be soldiers for too long,” John said with a smile, sitting down next to Carlos.

“John, what the fuck? When’d you get back?”

“Last night,” John said. “We were on the cleanup in Barcelona. No one even died, which makes us nearly unique.”

“Huh,” Carlos said, eyebrows raised. “Which squad are you now?”

“Thirty-sixth.”

“Which squad were you before?”

“Twenty-second,” John answered, smile turned somehow awful.

“Right,” Carlos said. He pushed his dessert in John’s direction.

Carlos, Michael had learned, truly believed in the soul-healing properties of chocolate. If he was parting with his chocolate, then something terrible must be going on.

“Don’t bother, Carlos,” John said. “I’m not really hungry, anyway. It’d be a waste of precious dessert.”

“S’like medicine, John,” Carlos said. “Don’t fuckin argue with me.”

John smiled again, less awful, more a real smile. “You’re such a mother, Carlos.”

“Don’t think you’re getting out of it like that. Eat your damn chocolate before I stick a fork in your ear.”

John ate the chocolate slowly. Michael tried not to stare. Carlos was _hovering_ , which was beyond strange.

“You know,” John said, looking at his plate. “It feels—doesn’t it sometimes feel that there’s a…pit. A bottomless pit in the center of your mind. And you’re just…just on the edge. Always, always walking around the edge. And it—it could give way at any time and then you’d fall. Do you know the feeling?”

“You think too much, John,” Carlos said. “That’s your problem.”

Michael wondered how helpful it was to say that kind of thing.

But John smiled. John always smiled. “Maybe,” he said. “I thought, I might as well run around the edge waving my arms and laughing, if I’m going to fall anyway. But. Sometimes even that’s difficult. Well.” He stood. “I’m going to bed. And in the morning, everything will still be horrible. Isn’t that right, Carlos?”

“You know it, man,” Carlos said, gently punching John’s shoulder as he passed by. They watched him until he left the dining hall.

“And that,” said Carlos, “is why the old guys don’t make friends.”

“What do you mean?” Michael asked, though he wasn’t sure he really wanted an answer.

“Twenty-second squad all got wiped out a couple days ago,” Carlos explained, pulling back the chocolate John had left behind and scowling at it. “They were trying to retrieve Innocence from a glacier or some crazy shit like that. I didn’t listen too close; that’s the kind of crap it doesn’t pay to know about. But yeah. There were a lot of John’s guys out there.”

Michael watched Carlos glower at nothing in particular, and thought how strange it was that he was the one who worried about everyone the most. “You’re saying that all of us will die and leave him alone, and then he won’t make any more friends.”

Carlos glanced at him, then turned back and poked at the remaining dessert. “I’m not saying that. John’s not a survivor, Mikey.”

He abruptly shoved away from the table and left.

* * *

Dear Mother,

I know there’s no point writing this but I’m going to anyway. Because even if you never read it, I can pretend you’re here when I’m writing. It’s the best I can do. And Carlos says that you shouldn’t make friends here because they’ll only all die. This way, even if you die I’ll never know. So it’ll be like you’re always alive, but I can’t see you. Someone you can’t see is better than someone you can see who’s only going to die.

I saw a man who bled to death, it was slow. He was telling his mother he was sorry the whole time. It’s funny to watch someone die and know that you’re going to go the same way.

* * *

Michael was eating lunch with Carlos. He was too exhausted from his last mission to do anything but sit and listen to Carlos rant about Kie and Mauser and how they were too important to sit with the finders because they _knew an exorcist_. It was all perfectly normal. It was all perfectly normal, anyway, until Lavi showed up.

Lavi was the only exorcist who ever really spoke to the finders, and Carlos suspected him of doing it for sinister Bookman purposes. Even so, he was an _exorcist_. Michael was completely in awe. In awe despite the actual content of the conversation.

“Michael! How’s things?” asked Lavi.

Michael stared. The exorcist knew his name. How could that be?

“Hey, Carlos!” Lavi went on, giving up on a response from Michael. “Still hating exorcists?”

“I don’t know, still being a total loser with women, Junior?” Carlos asked. “Oh, wait. The sun rose in the East this morning, so I guess that’s a yes. Shit.”

“I will win you over,” Lavi said confidently.

“The hell you will,” muttered Carlos. “Hey, aren’t you stalking your boyfriend the Noah today?”

“If you’re talking about _Allen_ ,” Lavi said, leaning over and stealing most of Carlos’s strawberries, “then no. The old man’s keeping an eye on him.”

“That’s fucked up, man,” Carlos said, making vague stabbing gestures at Lavi’s hand with his fork. “Not only does he just about fuckin kill himself for the cause, now the goddamn Vatican is _stalking_ him. I don’t care if he is a fuckin Noah, that ain’t right.”

“‘The goddamn Vatican,’” Lavi murmured. “I’ll remember that one.”

“Yeah, you remember everything, asshole,” Carlos snapped. “That’s what makes you so fuckin creepy.”

“I’m surprised you’re on Allen’s side, Carlos,” Lavi said curiously. “I thought you’d jump at an excuse to hate an exorcist for a real reason.”

“Hey, okay, I hate _all_ you bastards for real reasons. This isn’t a real reason, this is some stupid made up fuckin reason. If he was really a traitor? We’d all be dead by now. And people are sayin, ‘He was keeping undercover’ and stupid shit like that, but just no way, man. He’s a big stickin-his-neck-out hero type. No way is that just a fuckin cover, right. Now if you’d told me _Kanda_ was a traitor, that I’d believe, but this is total bullshit. Next they’re gonna come out and say Theodore’s a traitor, and then I’m gonna laugh until I puke.”

“That’s very logical, Carlos,” Lavi said with an admiring expression. “Also totally unlike you. So what’s the real reason?”

“Think you just know everything, don’t you? You freaky Bookman bastard.”

“The real reason is so that he can hate the exorcists who didn’t realize Walker was innocent _even more_ than he did before,” Sarah explained, settling on the bench next to Michael. “Plus, this way, he can also start hating most of the finders for not picking up on Walker being innocent. It all furthers his ultimate goal of righteously hating everyone on earth, see.”

“Who the fuck asked you?” Carlos demanded.

“Sarah!” Lavi said happily. “You’re back! I heard your last mission was a total swamp of misery.”

“Yeah, it was,” she agreed, poking absently at her plate. “It even had an actual swamp. With maggots.”

“Ewwww,” Lavi said appreciatively.

“Ewwww does not even _begin_ to cover it,” she sighed, dropping her fork and covering her eyes. “They weren’t even akuma! It’s one thing if they’re akuma, because then you can think, well, this is unnatural and doesn’t belong on earth. But these…they were just maggots! They do belong there! I mean, they were there because of all the dead bodies and stuff, which was because of akuma, but they were still natural. And they were these nasty, pale, writhing things, and they stank, and they were _everywhere_ , and they got into your _hair_ and the _food_ , and—”

“Sarah, seriously, shut the fuck up.”

“I may have to go with Carlos on this one. Sorry.”

Michael edged nervously down the bench.

“Yeah, no, it’s fine,” Sarah said. “I just wish I could shut my brain up, because I _really_ don’t need to keep thinking about this.”

“Want me to check your food?” Lavi asked helpfully.

Sarah considered. “How pathetic would I be if I said yes?” she asked.

“Under the circumstances?” Lavi said. “Not pathetic at all.”

“Then, please,” she said.

“Oh, Lavi, there you are,” said Allen Walker, and Carlos and Sarah both turned to stare. Michael just about fainted. At this point, Allen Walker was the hottest gossip in the Order. If he came to your table, you had _better_ pay attention, because there were going to be eight hundred questions later.

“Hey, Allen!” Lavi said happily. “Want to sit with us? I’m checking for maggots!”

Walker gave Lavi a long look. “Yes, Lavi,” he said finally. “I’d love to hear more about your maggot problem. At the lunch table.”

“Aw, don’t be like that,” Lavi said. “Maggots are just squishy meat. And don’t act like anything can put you off your food, because I know that’s a lie.”

“…Squishy meat?” Allen asked, looking a little queasy.

“Sit, sit!” Lavi said, scooting over. “This is Carlos, and you shouldn’t listen to a thing he says even if he is on your side.”

“The _fuck!?_ ” shouted Carlos, but that might have been because Timcampy was attacking what was left of his meal.

“This is Michael. He doesn’t talk.”

Michael stared.

“I see,” Walker said.

“And this is Sarah,” Lavi continued. “They sent her on a mission with maggots, and now she’s paranoid about them.”

“I don’t blame her,” Walker said, horrified.

“And _this_ is Allen Walker: once burned, became a pyromaniac.”

“Thank you for that, Lavi.”

“Anytime. And, hey, Allen, you don’t know where Panda is, do you?”

“Oh, that’s right. He told me to tell you that he’ll be talking to Komui about something for the rest of the afternoon.”

“Ah, good to know.”

“You do know they’re stalking you, right, Walker?” Carlos asked irritably. “You know they’re tag-teaming and passing you off, right?”

“Are they?” Walker asked, mildly surprised. “That explains a lot.”

“What, don’t you give a shit?” Carlos demanded.

“Why would I?” Walker asked. “I mean. It’s nice that they care.”

“You’re going to lose, Carlos,” Lavi informed him, snickering. “Allen doesn’t _do_ human logic.”

“Seriously, Walker?” Sarah asked with some fascination. “You find out Bookman are stalking you, and your response is, ‘Isn’t that nice of them?’”

“Well, I assume they have their own reasons for doing it,” Walker allowed. “But it’s nice to be around friends. It makes a change from—”

“Still eating, Walker?” Link asked disapprovingly from the side of the table where he’d suddenly appeared. Sarah and Carlos both jumped, and Michael cowered. “You know you still have a great many forms to fill out before Friday.”

“I know,” Walker sighed, turning his attention entirely to his food.

“Hey, maybe I’ll come along!” Lavi said enthusiastically. “I’m not doing anything with my afternoon. I’ll just keep you company and read.”

Link huffed disapprovingly, Sarah and Carlos gave Lavi deeply jaded looks, and Walker stopped eating long enough to grin.

Michael thought, _The exorcists seem so…normal_. But of course they weren’t. Everybody said so.

* * *

Dear Mother,

I met Exorcists today.

I did meet one before, I worked for Noise Marie before. He was nice. But Finders don’t talk very much to Exorcists during most missions because we go first and then when the Exorcists come they don’t need us anymore. Sarah says we’re like hammers to them.

This was different. Lavi came and sat with us in the dining hall, and he and Carlos yelled at each other, and he was so normal that it was very strange. Allen Walker came and sat with us also, he is another Exorcist that everyone is gossiping about very much. He didn’t seem like a gossip sort of person, though.

It was good to meet Exorcists. They were very nice people, and it doesn’t seem like a bad thing that we are helping them. Maybe we can all try not to die together.

* * *

“This was probably the best thing for him,” Sarah said, looking toward the gallery with no expression. Or not quite no expression; maybe she looked a little confused. As if she didn’t know why she was standing there, or even what was going on.

“Probably,” Olson agreed, leaning his head against the coffin, dead-eyed.

Michael and Carlos were both leaning against the other side of the coffin. Remarkably, Carlos didn’t have anything to say.

Michael didn’t think death was the best thing for anybody. But he didn’t have it in him to cry for John, either. It was strange. He’d cried for his first commander, and for a bunch of people he’d hardly known who’d died on missions he’d been on. But now John was dead, and John had been a good friend, and he didn’t feel like crying at all. Mostly he just felt tired. Very, very tired.

Maybe it was because crying hadn’t done any good any of the other times. They were all still dead.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Sarah said, her voice holding as little expression as her face. “Once we die, no one will remember him. It’ll be like he never existed.”

“His family?” Michael asked. His voice was almost as empty as Sarah’s; he hardly recognized it as belonging to him.

“His family is dead, Michael,” Olson said without looking up. “Why did you think he came here?”

Michael had gone to the Order for the good of mankind, or so he’d thought. It had never crossed his mind that other people had come because they didn’t have anything else left.

No wonder Carlos had thought John wouldn’t survive.

“Come on,” Sarah said. “He said if he died, I could have his rosary collection.” She left, and Olson followed her.

Once upon a time, Michael would have thought that was cold of her. He understood better, now. This was actually Sarah trying to be sentimental.

He and Carlos stayed a while longer, sitting next to the white coffin that belonged to them, in a row of white coffins that looked just the same.

* * *

Dear Mother,

John died on a mission.

A lot of people I know have died lately. Someone said the Exorcist Lenalee doesn’t make friends with Finders anymore because we die so fast, even faster than Exorcists, and she can’t stand it.

No one says what the Finders are supposed to do if they can’t stand it either.

I shouldn’t have left. You were right. I was stupid. I thought I could help fight, but I’m no help and there’s no point. If I’m lucky, maybe someone will notice when I die. Some good I am.

* * *

“Carlos, what’s up?” Lavi asked, just like everything was fine and nothing had changed.

“Don’t give me ‘what’s up,’ you bastard!” Carlos shouted. “The fuck is going on!? All the exorcists are having a fit, and Johnny’s cryin all the time, and Kanda just had Bazu backed up against the wall with a fuckin’ _sword_ at his throat—you tell _me_ what’s going on!”

“The sword thing was pretty dramatic,” Sarah put in. “Even for Kanda.”

“Kid seriously needs to get laid,” Carlos muttered.

“It won’t happen,” Lavi said, voice switching from cheery to, well, the grim voice of death. It made Sarah jump. Michael was glad he wasn’t the only one shocked.

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” Carlos demanded when no more was forthcoming.

Lavi looked at him…looked _through_ him. Carlos called it the Bookman Stare. Eyes that were seeing thousands of pages of history, and not your face at all.

“He’s gone out to practice. Getting laid to relax? That would never occur to Yuu. It’s the way exorcists are trained.” He spoke like he was reciting a lesson. “It’s the way they live. Child exorcists grow old so young, but they grow twisted. They know everything there is to know about death. They don’t know anything about life.”

“Don’t say ‘they’ like you aren’t one of them, you creepy freak,” Carlos said, unsettled. “You’re an exorcist, too.”

Lavi blinked; his eyes focused back on Carlos and away from history.

“Of course,” he said. And smiled.

Sarah shivered.

“Right…” Carlos said, eyeing Lavi sidelong. “Whatever. Like I said, _the fuck is going on?_ ”

Lavi shook his head, shook himself out of the strange frame of mind. “Bad news about Allen,” he said.

“Bad news like what?” Carlos asked suspiciously.

Lavi looked off to the side. “You could think of it as a wasting disease.”

“I could think of it like that, but that’s not what it is?” Carlos asked. Carlos could be very perceptive sometimes, and it was always a surprise.

“I’ll catch you later, Carlos,” Lavi said, standing and walking toward Allen, who’d just come in the door.

“What the _fuck!?_ ” Carlos shouted after him. Lavi didn’t even turn back.

* * *

Dear Mother,

Everything has turned strange.

I haven’t written for a long time because first we were attacked really badly, then we were moving the Order, and then everyone turned into a zombie, but we got better. Anyway, a lot has happened.

And there’s no time now, because we’re running to another mission. We’re supposed to check on an Innocence in Italy. Paestum, the town is called. I’ve never been to Italy.

This should be a fun mission, if there is such a thing as a fun mission. Carlos and Sarah are going with me. Olson says he feels left out, but he broke both of his legs and he can’t go anywhere. Sarah says he is only being ridiculous. And that’s true.

I’ll write you a real letter as soon as I get back. You have never been to Italy either, so I’ll tell you all about it.

Love from your son,

Michael

* * *

“If I’d known this was going to go so epically to shit,” Carlos whispered, “I would have broken my fucking legs, too.”

“Day late and a dollar short, Carlos,” Sarah whispered back. “But if you’re lucky, someone’ll come along and break them for you now.”

“I hate you, Sarah, have I ever told you that?” Carlos said.

“All talk.” Sarah rolled her eyes.

Michael didn’t much feel like chatting. The three of them were crammed between a thicket of blackberries and a ruined wall that the Romans had probably built. It wasn’t a bad hiding place, but they were all bleeding from the blackberries, and Michael was preoccupied with picking thorns out of his forearms. It was raining, too, seemingly out of spite.

Paestum was probably beautiful in the sunshine. Not that they would ever know.

“Oh,” Michael gasped, struck with a horrible thought. “Can akuma _smell_ people?”

“Nah,” Sarah said dismissively.

No sooner had the word left her mouth than they heard the distinctive clack and whine of akuma getting ready to fire, and they jumped up and ran like hell along the wall. The blackberries tore strips out of them, but it was better than an akuma bullet any day.

The place they’d been sitting exploded in a hail of bullets, and Michael felt Sarah stumble into him, pushing him into Carlos. Carlos half-turned and screamed something, but Michael couldn’t hear him, couldn’t hear anything at all. Not Carlos, not the bullets or the rain. His field of vision was getting smaller and smaller, too, and he thought, _This would be a very stupid time to faint_.

They dodged around the end of the wall and slammed their backs against the opposite side. After a few very long minutes, the akuma stopped firing. A couple of minutes of frozen silence after that, Carlos turned and climbed just high enough to catch a glimpse of their old hiding spot.

“They’re gone,” he announced, hopping down and turning to them with a grin. The grin fell away as soon as he got a good look at them. “Oh, _shit_ ,” he said.

Michael turned, thinking there must be akuma coming around the corner, but no. No, the problem was closer than that.

“It’s only a flesh wound,” Sarah said with a tired grin. Her entire shirt was covered in blood. It looked like it had come from the right side of her chest, and it was spreading _everywhere_.

“The fuck are you talking about _flesh wound?_ ” Carlos shouted, leaning down and ripping her shirt open.

“Oh, honey, I had no idea,” she wheezed.

“You’re in fucking shock, aren’t you?” Carlos demanded, then, “Don’t answer that. Like you would even know. Oh, Jesus Christ.” He stood up and backed away, and he kept backing away until his back hit the wall, then he slid down it to the ground. “Jesus Christ.”

Michael could see why Sarah’d crashed into him. A bullet must have hit the wall and knocked a piece off, and the piece had gone clean through her back and out her chest. Maybe through one of her lungs. Michael thought you could maybe survive with just one lung, or maybe not, but definitely not when you were out in a field with two guys who didn’t know anything and akuma just around the corner.

Sarah was going to die. That was why Carlos didn’t want to touch her.

“You don’t think the punctured look is sexy?” she asked, sounding breathless and giddy. “Man. That hurts more than the big chunk of rock, Carlos.”

For only the second time since Michael had met him, Carlos was completely at a loss for words. He just sat against the wall and stared.

Michael edged closer and grabbed Sarah’s shoulder, like holding onto her body would do a thing to keep her spirit there. He’d had a friend die, and he’d watched other finders die, but he’d never watched a friend die before. He was panicking like he’d never seen death at all.

“And they always said red was my color, too,” Sarah went on, ignoring both of them.

“Stop _talking_ like that!” Michael screamed, horrified and bewildered, shaking her by the shoulder until her head lolled back. “This isn’t some game! This is _life!_ Real life!”

“Real _life_ ,” she repeated, and started to laugh. She laughed until she coughed, and coughed until she’d spattered his shirt with blood. “Real life,” she gasped, leaning against his chest and clutching at his shirt, bleeding all over him. “There’s no such thing as real life, Michael. This is all there is.”

“We’ll get you help,” he insisted desperately.

“Don’t be stupid,” she whispered. It was the last thing she said.

Michael didn’t know how long they sat there, the two of them and the body. He wasn’t paying much attention to anything. Just listening to the rain falling all around, and thinking nothing, nothing, nothing. They might have been there for a very long time.

A crash behind the wall snapped them out of it. The akuma must have come back.

Akuma. Michael had completely forgotten about them, and now that he was reminded, he felt…outraged. How could they? How _could_ they? They’d already killed his friend, and now they wouldn’t even let him mourn?

“What good is it, anyway, Carlos?” Michael asked with growing rage, slumped over in the mud and the rain, holding what was left of Sarah. “What the _hell_ are we doing here?”

Carlos crawled closer and leaned in over Sarah until he and Michael were almost nose-to-nose. His eyes were still blank with shock and grief, but he grinned, wide and unsettling. “We’re saving the world, Mikey,” he hissed. “ _Saving the world_.”

Michael heard another crash, much closer. And at that point, inexplicably, he started to laugh and _just couldn’t stop_. He knew exactly how Sarah had felt. Punch drunk.

Maybe it was an akuma back there, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe an exorcist would save them, maybe not. It didn’t matter. Saving the _world?_ They hadn’t even managed to save one little woman.

He was sure it was the same for the exorcists, but on a bigger scale, on a scale he couldn’t understand. And if that was true, then they were _doomed_ , and so was the whole damn world.

And for some reason, just then, listening to what might well be his own approaching death, it seemed like the funniest thought he’d ever had.

* * *

Dear Mrs. O’Neill,

I am writing in response to your many inquiries about your son, Michael, who has become one of our Finders.

As I am sure you know, the Black Order is unable to share information about its members with anyone outside the Order, and, sadly, this includes even close relatives. I realize this rule seems both arbitrary and cruel, but past experience has proven that every exception made has led to many deaths. We cannot risk making more exceptions.

It is a terrible war indeed that turns love into a weapon. It is a terrible war, and a terrible enemy, and that is why your son bravely volunteered to join us.

I cannot tell you how your son is, nor can I tell you where he is, but I can tell you that I am incredibly grateful, both to him and to you. I am grateful to him for having the courage to fight to preserve what he loves, and I am grateful to you for having the strength to allow him to follow his convictions.

All I can give in return is a promise to do everything I can to protect my people, and to end this war as quickly as possible. God willing, there will soon come a day when we may all live quietly with our families, unafraid.

Respectfully yours,

Komui Li  
Chief Officer, Black Order


End file.
